High Production Volume Chemical Amine Oxides [C8–C20] Category Environmental Risk Assessment

An environmental assessment of amine oxides has been conducted under the OECD SIDS High Production Volume (HPV) Program via the Global International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) Amine Oxides Consortium. Amine oxides are primarily used in conjunction with surfactants in cleaning and personal care products. Given the lack of persistence or bioaccumulation, and the low likelihood of these chemicals partitioning to soil, the focus of the environmental assessment is on the aquatic environment. In the United States, the E-FAST model is used to estimate effluent concentrations in the United States from manufacturing facilities and from municipal facilities resulting from consumer product uses. Reasonable worst-case ratios of predicted environmental concentration (PEC) to predicted no effect concentration (PNEC) range from 0.04 to 0.003, demonstrating that these chemicals are a low risk to the environment.     

Alliance formation issues for knowledge-based enterprises

Inter-firm collaboration among knowledge-intensive firms is increasing as a result of accelerating competition, falling regulatory barriers and rising customer expectations. Resource dependency theory is used to position knowledge as the key resource for the knowledge-based enterprise and to examine the suitability of alliances as a mode of knowledge acquisition and exchange, contrasted particularly with merger and acquisition. The alliance and knowledge literatures are reviewed, and particular attention is paid to the critical alliance formation stage. This stage is reviewed against a research model that posits firm performance in knowledge creation arises from a number of factors, including the motivation for an alliance, partner firm characteristics (the ability to develop and sustain valuable resources; absorptive capacity; combinative capability; experience with alliances; and appropriate design for knowledge exchange), the development of operating structures and norms, and the choice of alliance structure. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research..     

Out-Of-School Care and Youth Problem Behaviors in Low-Income,Urban Areas

Using data from Welfare, Children and Families: A 3-City Study, this study explores how change and stability in out-of-school care are associated with changes in problem behaviors among youth from Time 1 (i.e., at ages 10–11) to Time 2 (an average of 16 months later). Girls in at-home, family care or an organized activity at Time 1 and in informal, out-of-home care or self-care at Time 2 experienced greater increases in problem behaviors than girls remaining in at-home family care or an organized activity. Other changes in care were related to youth outcomes differently depending upon maternal psychological distress. Policies must provide a full range of support services related to childcare and mental health care for low-income families.     

Are Religious People Nice People? Religiosity,Race, Interview Dynamics,and Perceived Cooperativeness

Prior research has shown consistently that religiosity, as indexed by self-reported frequency of prayer, is associated positively with "niceness," measured by interviewers'ratings of respondents'cooperativeness. We used data pooled from the 1983, 1988, and 1993 General Social Surveys to further examine the association between religiosity and niceness, and to raise questions about the adequacy of this currently preferred operationalization of niceness. We used three different measures of religiosity and directly examined racial differences in perceived cooperativeness. Our results indicate that each self-reported indicator of religiosity was associated positively with perceived cooperativeness (in separate models), while race was associated negatively. We found no evidence of mediating or moderating relationships. Overall, our results provide additional evidence that persons who are more religious are perceived by others to be more cooperative and that this effect operates net of more readily observable characteristics that might influence interview dynamics and interviewers'evaluations of respondents'cooperativeness. However, our results also suggest that new, more specific measures of niceness are needed to improve our ability to fully measure this sociologically important concept and to refine our understanding of the relationship between religiosity and niceness.     

Growing health disparities for persons who are aging with intellectual and developmental disabilities: the social work linchpin

Similar to the general population, adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are living into their 70s and beyond. Health care disparities have been well-documented for this vulnerable and underserved population. Social workers are often responsible for assessment, coordination of care, and negotiation of needed services for people with IDD. This article explores the challenges facing social workers in meeting the growing health and social needs of aging adults with IDD and their families. Trends in social work practice and gaps in education are discussed as they relate to addressing and reducing current health disparities.     

Private Polls and Presidential Policymaking: Reagan as a Facilitator of Change

Did the Reagan administration disregard majority will when craftingits policy initiatives? Did it cater to a narrow partisan constituencyinstead? The answers to these questions will help with an assessmentof Jacobs and Shapiro’s (2000b) hypothesis that presidentssince the late 1970s have used private White House survey researchas a tool to manipulate or assuage centrist public opinion whilemeeting the policy demands of their partisan core supporters,resulting in a decline in presidential responsiveness to majoritywill. Using the actual surveys administered by Richard Wirthlin(Reagan’s pollster) between 1981 and 1983, this articlewill demonstrate the level of consistency between majority opinionon 129 policy issues and Reagan’s behavior through 1984,and it will explore the conditions under which the presidentwas more or less likely to respond to public preferences. Thedata reveal that the Reagan administration was constrained bythe popular will in predicable ways: if the policy issues wereabout domestic concerns, highly popular, and visible in themedia, then the administration acted in line with public preferencesmore than 70 percent of the time. Further, Reagan and his adviserswere selective in responding to party activists: they championedissues drawn from their conservative ideological agenda thatfit with the current tide in public opinion, while sidesteppingother issues dear to party activists that encountered strongmajority resistance. While I do not contest Jacobs and Shapiro’s(2000b) important observation that presidents often use surveyresearch to "craft talk" in an attempt to channel the publicdebate, the evidence here highlights how the president nonethelessremains constrained by the popular will, at least on domesticissues.     

Neighborhood structural disadvantage,collective efficacy,and self-rated physical health in an urban setting

Our analyses examine the role neighborhood structural characteristics--including concentrated disadvantage, residential instability, and immigrant concentration--as well as collective efficacy in promoting physical health among neighborhood residents. Using data from the 1990 census, the 1994 Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods Community Survey, and the 1991-2000 Metropolitan Chicago Information Center-Metro Survey, we model the effects of individual and neighborhood level factors on self-rated physical health employing hierarchical ordered logit models. First, we find that neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage is not significantly related to self-rated physical health when individual level demographic and health background are controlled. Second, individuals residing in neighborhoods with higher levels of collective efficacy report better overall health. Finally, socioeconomic disadvantage and collective efficacy condition the positive effects of individual level education on physical health.     

Attentional Engagement in Infancy: The Interactive Influence of Attentional Inertia and Attentional State

We evaluated the interactive influences of attentional state and attentional inertia on infants' level of attentional engagement. We assessed infants' distraction latencies longitudinally at 6.5 and 9 months as they explored toys, and we coded both their attentional state (focused vs. casual) and how long they had been looking at the toy at each distractor onset. Consistent with previous results, both attentional state and attentional inertia contributed to differences in distraction latency. Importantly, the level of attentional engagement was interactively determined by attentional state and attentional inertia. Infants were most resistant to distraction when they were judged to be in a state of focused attention following relatively long looks to the toy, and they were equivalently less resistant to distraction under all other conditions. These results are consistent with a general conceptualization of attentional engagement resulting from the interaction of multiple processes.